Parents When "good" is enough

[rsm]

This is more of a lament than anything else, since I really can't do anything about it. So DD has reached the point in the season (L4) where she is quite satisfied with her performance, and sees no reason to improve or work on details except for the skills she really likes (read bars and maybe vault). Unfortunately, she is only 2 meets into the season and has 6 left. That she is scoring higher on floor and beam than previous seasons is a complete testament to the coach somehow drilling form improvements in there. She has scored over 35 in her first 2 meets season, and is sooo happy.

So I asked one day if she wanted to do even better and she said "Not really". I wasn't really sure where to take the conversation from there. She seems to get to a plateau during the season where the scores stay about the same (once she has all the skills reliably) while others seem to improve steadily. She works so hard to get to 90%, but the motivation isn't there for that last push of polishing, paying attention to all the details. She is very happy with "good enough"... which is higher than most kids, so I guess I shouldn't complain. And this isn't just gymnastics btw, applies to her other activities and school so it's not limited to gym by any means. I am already so proud of her, but just needed to let this out somewhere. And maybe, just maybe, her coach can pull some more improvements out of her without her realizing it.

 

[emorymom]

Sure. Just let it go. Her goals will change with time.

 

[JoyAvenueMom]

Is she somehow related to my oldest dd? LOL She is not a gymnast, but a talented vocalist. She is smart, and capable, but doing "good enough" was always fine with her. Her dad and I are competitive and achievement-motivated, so we have had a hard time understanding her attitude. This state of mind is present in EVERYTHING. School was easy for her, but she was happy to make the easy "B". Choir was easy for her and her biggest love, but she rarely, if ever, practiced at home. She learned her music for all-state jazz choir auditions on the 2-hour drive to the audition. She missed the cut-off by one place (they only took 6, she was 7th). If only she had actually prepared!!!!

Your dd is young, and may yet find some drive and a desire to strive for perfection....but, my oldest never did. We had to accept (after years of frustration) it just wasn't her nature. We love her for who she is...compassionate, caring, beautiful, etc. I still LOVE to hear her sing, she has a wonderful gift that brings her joy, and joy to those around her.

And yes, I think she will still improve, even without focusing on the details. She will continue to get stronger and more flexible, 'tis the nature of all that practice. Moving to optionals may light a fire as well, when she can focus on her own routines.

 

[Ariekannairb]

I may fall on the opposite side of most here, but I pay a heck of a lot of money and my entire family sacrifices in terms of time for my DD to be a competitive gymnast. None of us mind one bit, but my daughter better be out there showing me she appreciates it. I don't expect perfection (quite honestly I have an average gymnast), but I expect her to put effort into it. That said, she is young as I am sure your DD is and doesn't always see the value in working on the little things, especially once she has reached her big goal. The way we deal with that is to break it down. Once all of the skills are gained, we talk about little areas that can be improved. "Hey K lets see if we can work on keeping those arms straight consistently during your turns." Or "your legs are just a tiny bit apart when you go over in your vault, let's see if you can land that with some nice tight feet" or whatever. Just one little goal at a time. Also, while some may call it bribing, I prefer to call it motivating, but I will let K set a goal and when she reaches it, we go out for ice cream. I do this with all of my children As she matures she will start setting those goals without my help, but for now, I do push a tiny bit

 

[bookworm]

I have never set goals for my kids' sports ...it's their sport and they own it. I only require that they try

 

[Faith]

What Bookworm said. If my kids want to go, have fun, make friends, keep fit and off the streets that's good enough for me. As long as they're happy with what they do, that's fine by me.

Also I pay her very good, expensive coaches to coach her. It's the coaches job to say keep your arms straight, legs together etc. It's up to her to implement their suggestions. I may say "you looked good in training tonight", or "you worked hard"- sometimes even "I saw coach tell you to do x,y and z, and I could tell you were trying really hard to do what he asked". Parents coaching or setting goals can actually interfere with what a coach is trying to do.

Fo another point of view- some kids (especially perfectionists)- are afraid of failing. So they'll be just good enough, because they're frightened that if they put 100% in, and still don't win, where do they go from there? (sports psychologist, probably!) It's a lot less pressure too to be good enough, rather than have everyone expect you to win every meet.

Leave her be. The motivation has to come from her.

 

[Ariekannairb]

Our coaches are kind enough to give the girls little things they can work on when we are at home. I'm not coaching her skills or trying to correct her back handspring form. It is just like when I was a kid and played sports, there were little drills that our coaches gave us to improve areas we needed work in. I have no problem helping her correct droopy arms or spread feet. It doesn't take half a brain to to say "hey, did you realize your feet are spread?" We all work together with the coaches to help improve the little things at home so they can focus on the big things during practice.

I guess you have to know your child well enough to know what they can and can't take from you. I knew I would be on the other side of the fence to most, but if my child wants to just partially do her gymnastics I will save myself the $500 in meet fees plus the monthly fees and leo fees and warm up fees and she can do rec classes. When she chose to be competitive she chose to work at a higher level. If at any point she decides she just wants to go out and have fun without that "pressure", I am more than happy to indulge that while lightening my fees You can help her set realistic goals without crushing her spirits. It isn't an all or nothing deal. I don't belittle her when it takes time to reach a goal and I don't expect her to set goals that are outside of what she is capable of. Like I said before, I don't expect perfection, but I do expect that she will be working on improving to the best of her abilities and within reason.

 

[Sasha]

I have experienced this with my oldest son, more extremely than your DD it sounds. He's happy to do the minimum, in just about everything. We tried just about every sport with him, including gymnastics, because he is naturally athletic and we thought for sure he would be inspired by something. He is naturally 'good' at sports, but is happy to chuck a cringe-worthy front handspring and be done. Though he's naturally fit, he hates conditioning and drills (even 'fun' soccer drills) of any kind. Long story short, his best moments and greatest strengths are, and will probably always be, in areas where there is no 'perfection' to strive for. Art (in many forms) and creative writing are where he is happy and excels. My other son, however, will do 1000 handstands in the living room and ask me each time 'Am I straight or banana?' Or shoot 1000 baskets (by himself) trying to beat his own records. He is clearly striving for perfection, even without any obvious reward. Such different kids.

Just another parent's story!

Your DD is scoring great, and it's probably impossible right now to predict if she will have a 'fire lit' any time soon to really push herself on the little things , or if she will be happy achieving her own, less-than-perfect, goals. My personal style is to always be as honest and realistic as possible with my kids about how scoring works (in any sport), what it takes to achieve X or Y, and help them set realistic goals and expectations (while of course showing my unconditional pride in their efforts).

I can imagine if it was my DD replying 'not really' to your question, I might say 'Oh! Well then it sounds like you accomplished everything you wanted already this season - that's super! I'm so proud of you! What are the next things you hope to accomplish in gymnastics?' And listen to whatever she says. Then over the next duration, occasionally ask about goals, and if they include things like 'going to State' or 'getting a medal at X' or 'moving up to X' then I would maybe ask what she thinks it will take to get that/what the coach says it will take, just to continually reinforce the goal-cause-effect type thinking. It's not a bad thing to not be uber-motivated by scores, per se - perhaps better than being so obsessive over scores that the pressure overcomes them.

Have a great rest of season!

 

[Aussie_coach]

Motivation is a delicate balances. If there is any piece missing it won't really be there. For a child to be motivated they need the following.
1. To enjoy what they do, few kids are motivated to do something they don't like.
2. To have something they really want to be able to achieve, a really strong driving goal.
3. To feel like they are good at what they do.
4. To feel that they are good enough to achieve the goal.
5. To have realistic steps to help them achieve their goal

 

[Amusibus]

Is that her personality with everything in life? Or just with gymnastics? Trying to create intrinsic motivation in a child's mind is like trying to force potty training on a toddler who just isn't ready - i.e., an exercise in frustration. While I understand the "I'm paying big bucks for this so you better do your best" attitude from a parent's perspective, in my humble opinion there is little to nothing you can do to make your daughter want what you want. I know how frustrated you probably feel, but it seems like this is what parenting IS: In the wise words of Andrew Solomon in "Far From the Tree", when we have children it is a misnomer to call it "reproduction" - we are not reproducing ourselves, we are *producing* new individuals, our children, who may be vastly different than ourselves.

 

[Rapunzel]

My eldest is like this in everything - school, sports, gymnastics. I don't know if some of it comes down to fear of failing if she doesn't succeed if she gave 100%. She's just not naturally competitive. She loves her gymnastics & that's enough for me.
My youngest wont attempt things if she knows she'll lose (eg musical statues) but I don't think she's aware of the competitive element to gymnastics yet.

 

[iwannacoach]

She'll decide when she wants more, and she'll have a lot more energy and heart if and when she does it on her own. I can't begin to tell you the number of kids I've worked with who had a different gymnastics value system than I grew up with. It was one of the greatest frustrations early in my career, and it stayed that way until I recognized that a child's physical abilities/potential are a small part of the entire gymnastics equation....... and that forcing them (or something like that) to reach for higher goals is very much the same as forcing a kid to have more natural ability than she has.

Some get there and some don't.

 

[happychaos]

Just had a similar conversation with my DD tonight. If she wants to play around and do 15 reps without making a correction that is fine, but she will not do it while in JO. She can go to excel or rec if she just wants to have fun. And that would be fine. But the rest of the family sacrifices waaaay to much for her to do gymnastics halfheartedly. And gymnastics comes easy to her, so she gets better with very little effort. Thankfully, most of the time she is very hardworking and focused.

 

[UnoMas]

My DD is exactly like this and it is a constant battle to try and keep my mouth shut about it whenever possible...but my DD is older and takes offense to most things that I say.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Is she having fun?

If so, don't worry about it.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

sounds like she feels she is giving her best effort. so yes, that's good enough for now.

 

[happychaos]

Is she having fun?

If so, don't worry about it.

Honestly, FUN isn't enough to justify the sacrifices my entire family makes for gymnastics. I expect my DD to work hard and try her best. If there is a prolonged period of time where she is not willing to work hard and give it her all, then that will be the end of her JO "career". Sure, fun is an important part of it, but there are many, many things my DD can do for fun that do not require the time, energy, and money that gymnastics requires.

I don't want to sound like a super-mean momma. I do value fun as one of the most important parts of childhood. But, if my DD is cut out for JO, then she will find the hard work and dedication to be fun.

So far she loves most everything about this sport. Some days this makes me happy and other days....well, I look longingly at the kids playing soccer at the 5 million soccer parks I pass on the drive to the gym

 

[dani4]

You have just described me, as a child and throughout my whole life.

Sometimes I really do try to be great, and I really do want to win.. but I am just not usually that motivated. I don't know why exactly. Part of it is that most things come easy to me, at least in the beginning. I'm relatively athletic, smarter than average, can do math, can write well, etc etc. But I'm pretty sure that I don't have the chops to truly achieve greatness, so I don't. Everything always gets hard eventually, and when the learning curve drops off I lose interest. Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. I'm actually happy as long as I sit above average wherever I am. I recognized this about myself pretty early on- I cannot be at the bottom or even the middle, but I am just not going to work my tushie off to be at the top. So I've always tried to get into the best schools possible, take the most challenging classes possible, do the hardest sports I dare to try... because then at least I have to work hard to stay above average, and I know that I will. I've also been motivated to work harder when I have a great coach or teacher who I admire and want to earn the respect of. And sometimes I have a goal that gets me to push beyond myself.. there are a few things I haven't yet done that I'm working towards.

It's funny because I'm married to an overachiever workaholic who is smarter and more athletic than me... so we often talk about what motivated us as children and what motivates us now. And we see ourselves in our young children (though we try not to pre-judge and wait and see what they will do without deciding for them)- my younger daughter is the perfectionist, the future lion-tamer/gymnast, completely self-motivated and will compete mostly against herself and is rarely satisfied with her performance though she never gives up. And then my older daughter, who isn't quite exactly like me because she is more socially motivated- she seems to want to make friends with the best kid in the class, but she isn't trying to be the best herself. She also has an artistic temperament, which is different than me.

If your daughter is like me, I would say that in the long run you're not going to get her to change much, but it is a good idea to keep her in challenging environments so that she has to work hard to be "good enough" even if that means she eventually gets to where she wants to be and she stops working. Sounds like gymnastics is that kind of place, and maybe as it gets harder she won't have the luxury of resting on her laurels- maybe that will motivate her, or maybe she'll quit. You can't know.

I will say that all hope is not lost- I went to a challenging graduate school and I finally got mostly As because I was terrified of flunking out. It felt good to swim with the big fishes. I had some setbacks and serious moments of doubt but in the end I did everything I set out to do, and most of it very well. I still haven't achieved what I want athletically, but I'm in a sport where there are competitive 50 and 60 year old women so I'm still trying.. definitely not gymnastics of course .

 

[rsm]

I hope I didn't make it sound as though DD is not motivated at all or does not work hard. She absolutely is motivated and does work very hard, and has lots of fun. She wouldn't be there if it wasn't fun for her. And it's enough for me that she has fun and is working hard. If she wasn't having fun, she would quit, and if she wasn't working hard, I would take her out. And most of the time she will try to make corrections. Does she try her best? Probably 90% of the time she does. I'll take those odds for a soon-to-be 8 year-old for now. I can certainly understand her not liking certain aspects and working less hard at those. And not being as motivated by scores is actually quite wonderful in some aspects, because she has never come home from a meet being disappointed. But I do hope she realizes at some point that working just a little harder of some the things she doesn't like or can't do well will help her with everything else. I don't think I quite got that as a kid, so I'm hoping that maybe she will learn a little quicker than I did.

I would say that I don't feel we sacrifice a whole lot for her gymnastics (other than $$$$ of course). We live very close to the gym, it's very convenient for us to drop off and pick up. So the only real time sacrificed for us would be meet days. The sacrifice is really all hers... her time with friends, giving up other activities, being tired and hungry every day. I am very proud of her. The motivation does need to come from her though. I have tried to help her understand, but she needs to figure it out on her own. She spends so much time at the gym, that I need to help with the other non-gym aspects of her life when she's with me. Thanks for all the responses. It's great reading the different perspectives on this topic.